textdraw is a terminal-based drawing application for creating geometric figures and text using ASCII characters. It provides an interactive workspace where lines, rectangles, ellipses and text objects can be positioned to form diagrams.
The utility is particularly useful when illustrations need to remain in a plain-text format. Drawings can be included in technical documentation, presentations, messages and other material where conventional graphical images are unnecessary.
Unlike a simple text converter, textdraw allows users to manipulate individual drawing objects. Figures can be selected, copied, moved and modified without recreating the entire illustration.
The program is deliberately lightweight and concentrates on a small collection of geometric drawing tools. Its ncurses interface makes it suitable for environments where a graphical desktop is unavailable.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Provides an interactive ASCII drawing workspace.
- Creates straight-line objects.
- Draws rectangular shapes and borders.
- Supports ellipse objects.
- Inserts text objects into drawings.
- Allows existing objects to be selected and moved.
- Supports copying and pasting drawing elements.
- Modifies previously created geometric figures.
- Saves artwork for subsequent editing.
- Exports drawings as ASCII text.
Website: salsa.debian.org/debian/textdraw
Support:
Developer: Dieter Schoppitsch
License: GNU General Public License

textdraw is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| ASCII Art Tools | |
|---|---|
| gif-for-cli | Convert media to animated ASCII art |
| ASCIIQuarium | Embrace marine life from the terminal with beautiful ASCII art |
| Calligraphy | Converts short texts into large, imposing banners |
| CMatrix | Terminal based “The Matrix” |
| Diagon | Transforms markdown-style expression into an ascii-art representation |
| Aewan | Ascii-art Editor Without a Name |
| Steam Locomotive | C program written in 295 lines. It's harmless fun |
| boxes | ASCII box drawing |
| Durdraw | ASCII, Unicode and ANSI art editor |
| FIGlet | Make large letters out of ordinary screen characters |
| pipes.sh | Animated pipes terminal screensaver |
| jp2a | Convert JPEG images to ASCII |
| asciify | Turn images into attractive ASCII art |
| lolcat | Rainbows and unicorns |
| Artem | Convert images to ASCII art |
| TOIlet | Similar in many ways to FIGlet with additional features |
| textdraw | Draw geometric figures and text |
| PyBonsai | Generates procedural ASCII art trees |
| No More Secrets | Recreates the data decryption effect seen in the 1992 film Sneakers |
| Letterpress | Converts your images into a picture made up of ASCII characters |
| draw | Simple drawing tool for the terminal |
| ASCII Art Converter | Converts images into ASCII art |
| cbonsai | Generate bonsai trees |
| cadubi | Creative ASCII drawing utility |
| cacafire | Color ASCII Fire |
| cowsay | Generates ASCII pictures of a cow with a message in a speech bubble |
| Mezzotone | Convert images into ASCII art |
| img2ascii | Command-line tool for converting images to ASCII art |
| gti | Typo-based curio inspired by Steam Locomotive |
| ctree | Christmas tree on your terminal |
| ASCII Draw | Sketch anything using characters |
| catspeak | Like cowsay but catty |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
LinuxLinks helps you discover the best free and open source software for Linux. Explore our extensive collection of recommended applications, including alternatives to popular proprietary software.We also publish software reviews, Linux tutorials, hardware reviews, free programming books and articles covering the wider open source community. Browse our Linux resources to discover more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application we haven't covered? Suggest a program for inclusion. Has your software been featured on LinuxLinks? Display one of our Featured on LinuxLinks badges on your website or GitHub README. |


Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.